THE STORY
UPLIFTING HUMANKIND TO CREATE HUMANITY
VIA SOCIETAL METAMORPHOSIS1
Save Civilization or Create Humanity2
Although humans have accomplished much and have demonstrated many
quality attributes during the Era of Civilization, we might query whether, as a
whole, civilization (a specific type of human societal organization) may not
have been, in sum, negative for Gaia and for Humankind. A few have recommended
we go Beyond Civilization [1], while more recently Naomi Klein [2] has
claimed that capitalism must be replaced if humankind is to survive. I up the
ante and propose that humankind must not only abandon civilizations, but create
a viable nu humanity, if humankind is permitted to
have a secure multi-millennial future. I deliberately use "nu", not "new", a
distinction to be discussed later in the article.3
Yet, the vast majority of solutions proposed call for reforming
our economic system; essentially committing us to an attempted preservation of
civilization, risking the very real (but denied) threat of Extinction (the E
word!). A few cry out warnings; but can’t provide any hopeful solutions. I hope
to suggest, here, a path alternative to collapse/extinction. In addition, I and
others concerned, must collectively face our own intuitive/emotional denial of
our Crisis-of-Crises (as evidenced by our behavior), even as our
conceptual/rational minds work overtime.
4
In this chapter I hope to tease your curiosity that our future
might be very, significantly different from all the other scenarios you may
have considered. One where emerges an exciting Opportunity-of-Opportunities
[3] ready for the taking. 5
The theme of this essay is an attempt to imagine changes in how
humankind conceptualizes reality (as a distribution of different, personal
worldviews) from the early 21st Century to different "times"
(critical moments) on our path/expedition to a condition when the multi-millennial
future of Humanity/Gaia is "secure" (as best it can be secure). That
is, we have successfully ducked the bullet of catastrophic climate change and a
personal-to-planetary, viable, sustainable, and thriving Humanity dances with a
nu, emergent Gaia into the far future.6
"Change", used here, can apply to both: 1) the
specification of how a future "state" is different from a prior
"state", and 2) processes that bring about the transition between
"states". Change-1 is static; change-2 is dynamic.7
I am not calling for futurist speculation of consequences to
existing and future technological innovations, although they are very
significant. I am not calling for survivalist speculations after collapse; or a
post Singularity humankind. Obviously, we can no more accurately imagine
details of these changes than our tribal ancestors could imagine our high tech
civilization. The best we can do is being assertively open to challenges to
many of our most "sacred" assumptions about "reality". The
changes I explore are not guaranteed to occur and may not have high probability
(futures probability estimates are impossible without major, highly
questionable assumptions). The changes will depend on specific types of actions
taken by humans. They will be the result of human intentional
agency. 8
In this human adventure I propose, where each human person will be
a participant, I cannot avoid including my personal story of how I came to host
an inner world named “nuet” (which I invite you to visit) [4]. At age 22, I discovered I lacked mental imagery
in all sensory modalities – including visual and auditory. I have learned of
only a few others who claim this total lack. Outdated research claims 3%
lack visual imagery and 7 % lack auditory imagery. This led me to study mental imagery
(just at the time it was emerging from suppression by behaviorists). There is
great variation within each imagery modality.
9
Over the years I learned more about my disabilities, such as
having no sensory remembrances or sensory fields for creativity – and how this
affected my interaction with others. Nuet serves as a context for what I experience. Each domain in nuet's world has less detail than for most others. This disability has been compensated for by the
emergence of a special process of conceptualizing, and nuet's world can be more comprehensive than for any
persons I have yet encountered.
I have come to view myself as a "savant" with both extreme
disabilities and compensatory abilities - except that neither are in
traditional categories and I am seen as simply "eccentric", sharing
here a few of the insights relevant to a viable emergence of Societal
Metamorphosis. 10
Two paths to a better future11
Let us first explore our most significant and critical choice
towards a better future. There are two main paths:12
(1) Fixing and reforming
civilization, humankind morphs/transforms by gradual, incremental,
transformational changes from our current state in 2015 to a better future
state.13
(2) Through emergent,
alternative views of “change” and “reality”, a nu humankind forms and learns/organizes into becoming a
viable humanity preparing for a healthy multi-millennial future dance with
Gaia. This involves the use of new technologies and accurate/advanced knowledge
of both the "current-state/history of humankind/civilization" &
"trending changes", and emerging alternatives. Although a successful
“shift” must occur this century (and possibly sooner), it will take centuries
to millennia to “mature”. The “maturing” will be done by the next, much more
competent generations. Our task is to manifest the “shift” .14
On this second path, a radical transition is created. This
transition has analogy with insect metamorphosis, with butterfly form emerging
from caterpillar form, without transformation (morphing); a new process labeled
Societal Metamorphosis.15
The caterpillar doesn't morph into a butterfly. It doesn't absorb
its many short, stout legs and grow a few long spindly legs. It doesn't grow
wings on the heavy caterpillar body. Sequential pictures/states of the transFORMation
from caterpillar FORM to butterfly FORM don't exist. Instead, early in the life
of the caterpillar, some cells grow/develop into embryonic organs of the future
butterfly, called Imaginal Buds. During the life of the caterpillar these
imaginal buds are discs/clusters of small cells dormant (but nurtured) within
the body of the caterpillar’s larger cells. Initiating active metamorphosis,
the caterpillar encases itself in a cocoon and begins disintegration of
functional caterpillar cells into a nutrient soup supporting the
growth/development of imaginal buds into functional components, organs, and
subsystems of the emergent butterfly. Most of the molecular components of the
caterpillar become components of the emergent butterfly. This is a "popular"
type of change in Gaia. I have read that in some instances each cell in the
caterpillar/butterfly has two whole genomes, one for each form. For human
societal metamorphosis we must create our societal analog of the butterfly
genome. Caterpillar/Civilization forms cannot be morphed or transformed into
Butterfly/Humanity forms. At the molecular level there would be a
continuous process, and in Societal Metamorphosis there would be
continuity-of-life for many humans. But it would be more like migration between
two realities than a transformation of realities. “Migrating to NU”, might be
the title of our story; NU is the term I use to label the nu
humanity, the emergent societal butterfly. [5]16
BIGGER THAN BIG - BEYOND BIG PICTURES 17
I use "NU" (in caps) to label the set of models for
Humanity/Gaia [6] I hope will manifest within this century. NU is bigger than
big; NU is more than a big picture. NU is more that a description of the
"state" of Humanity/Gaia on Earth Day, 2100. NU includes the history
from 2015, and before. NU can't be visualized, or experienced.18
HUMANITY is a creative,
aesthetic, loving, intelligent process, emergent on a planetary scale. It is a
new process tweaking the billion year story of biological evolution. At each
stage in the process there are existential forms/systems (also called Humanity)
of which humans living in that era are viable components. 19
NU - is an imagined social
organism, the whole of humankind after societal metamorphosis or migration, a nu humanity. NU will grow,
adapt, learn, develop, evolve, emerge for centuries
and millennia. NU will be as radically different in form and behavior from 21st century humankind, as a butterfly is from a caterpillar. We,
change agents, although cells in societal imaginal buds, can’t fully or accurately
imagine NU. Thus, it is highly premature for us to propose the form for
NU. Nu humans in NU will be far more competent than we are today. Although we
are free to speculate, it would be a waste of valuable time and energy to
debate alternative future forms of NU, when there is little we can, or should,
do to secure our contemporary preferences.20
new/nu distinction
I use the characters Here&Now to label the
“experience of presence”. Here&Now has temporal
duration; it is more than an instantaneous moment or the “present”. All is
experienced in the Here&Now, including our past
and future. “new” and “nu” are two alternative
perspectives within our Here&Now. “new” refers to novelty in the Here&Now
that relates to the “past”. “nu” refers to the novelty
in the Here&Now that relates to our alternative
futures. Both new/nu are useful perspectives. “nu”
explores potential.21
Zeno's paradox is resolved when each halving of the distance
covered is matched by halving the time elapsed - the foundations of the
calculus. NU is achievable when we match the full challenge of its
creation with the exponential uplift in the distribution of humankind's
potentially actualizable competencies. Contemporary humankind can’t create NU;
but humankind can uplift itself to requisite competency levels to create NU.22
Uplift for Transformation: A Pragmatic Future23
What actually happens is beyond forecasting. Whatever emerges,
transformation will also occur; transformations always accompany/follow
emergence. To me, the first step to operate a radical transition with the
established order would require a well organized “revolutionary” population.
The alternative movements in 2015 are grossly inadequate to confront the
“powers that be” (whoever they are). Big money suppresses much needed
innovation.24
Information about protests and alternative projects is managed in
the corporate mainstream media. Hi-tech police power can control any
“disturbance” and intimidate resistance. Corporations “own” most of the
democratic and judicial structures. Today, the top constrains everything else.
Significant change coming from the “streets” is a naïve pipe dream. The “powers
that be” will do anything they need to do to maintain their dominance.25
Whether our future transition is transformation or emergence,
success demands a nu, highly competent,
learning/organizing population to challenge the existing order, either by
reform or replacement. UPLIFT (developed later) is essential to both paths.26
The Magnitude /Scope/Complexity of our CHANGE is Beyond
Imagination.27
This is very difficult to convey. What humans are asked to give up
is initially unacceptable until they fully comprehend and accept what they will
gain. What is happening on Earth in this 21st Century is not the fall
& rise of another civilization. This is the first time the change is
global, with no unaffected regions to support recovery. We have not only
destroyed our humankind organizational systems, but have destroyed our
ecological, resource based, home.28
No one or force is coming to save us. Fortunately we have
unrecognized powers and resources beyond our awareness and imagination. Just as
infants and young children can’t imagine their potential futures as adults; so
humankind is blind to many of its future options. I don’t speak of new special
abilities as given to our “Super Heroes” on TV, or enhanced telepathy or
eternal life. I speak of how human systems would develop if each person had
access to personally supporting learning environments tuned to their unique
propensities and the real needs of their collectives. Neither a top-down
program (too much direction limiting personal creative agency) nor a grassroots
bottom-up program (too much individual freedom by persons unable to be
personally aware of all the consequences of their actions) can suffice. It is
our challenge to weave a process, Personal to Planetary, where “domination” is
not permitted.29
Our potential future can’t be represented in a blueprint, an
explicit plan to guide us through changes. We must continually design our own
plans, test them, and revise them, proceeding through cycles of design and
attempted implementation. We must begin to properly apply “scientific
methodology” to social/societal [7] change.30
Human innovative ingenuity has almost exclusively been directed
towards “making” (material construction), and technologies for “making”. This
includes tools to amplify our perceptions and actions; but again primarily
directed towards our non human environment. Only the crudest attention has been
given to human learning and organizing. When the “best is bad”, but we can’t
imagine “better”, we honor the “best-we-have”. Organization, education, and
economics all fit this characterization. The pseudo science of
“economics” has attracted most talent and the science-tech
institutions primarily to further human material productivity. Religions,
governments, and corporations are simplistic and crude compared to other
technological systems. Even the exciting adventures in community living have
never gone beyond temporary experimentation. Some of the organizational
experimentation in hi-tech corporations is encouraging – but they are still all
directed towards making things to market in our economic system. Creativity,
Inc. by Ed Catmull [8] has recently caught my
attention. 31
Ignorance: a positive form of knowing32
Ignorance is knowing of what one doesn’t
yet know or comprehend, and knowing of what one can’t yet do or appreciate.
One’s “ignorance” is one’s knowledge of their potentials. I have proposed
that learning about and to use “ignorance” be an explicit feature of quality
educational systems. I was primed for this insight that led me to select
and read the book: The Encyclopedia of Ignorance. [9] in
1977. This is now an accepted, minority usage as illustrated in a recent
book, Ignorance: How It Drives Science
[10] which debunks the popular idea that knowledge follows ignorance,
demonstrating instead that it’s the other way around. As illustrated in
these two books, the act of describing one’s specific ignorance leads to an
efficient selection and explication of the most relevant knowledge we do have:
framing our knowledge in our ignorance. The potential of the whole field of
ignorance may have special relevance and utility, as distinct from our whole
field of “accepted knowledge”. Knowing of, the
domain of questions and queries is a type of knowledge. While pure numbers of
expanding publications are impressive, they don’t adequately reflect the
changes in our structures of knowledge and ignorance.33
The knowledge perspective tends to narrow the discourse more and
more, until we end up with many semi-isolated silos of specialists. These
specialists’ ignorance is often limited to only those issues related to their
silo. On the other hand, dive into detailed debate on the fractal-like
multitude of topics and discover the awesome extent of humankind’s expanding
knowledge of process, new methods of gaining new knowledge (and wisdom). This
is happening with only a very small percent of humankind. UPLIFT will be
designed to tap into this wealth. 34
The Need for UPLIFT35
UPLIFT is a term gathering nu meanings. I use it implying a
bootstrapping, self-organizing process, not an external force lifting something
up. A definition may be: UPLIFT is a process whose goal is to rapidly
increase/improve/innovate the distribution of conceptual/intuitive/performance
competencies in the global population. In this chapter I also use the term
interchangeably with a specific model of change leading to that goal. UPLIFT
evolves as the core process in stages: from an R&D team, a movement/network
of communities, an organization/society, a nu humanity. Many quote Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the
only thing that ever has." 36
UPLIFT is a core process in Societal Metamorphosis. It cannot be
achieved by reform of any existing educational system, and is much more than an
educational process. OLLO
(Organizing-for-Learning=&=Learning-for-Organizing) is the primary
conceptual scheme underlying UPLIFT.37
OLLO is a novel, innovative approach for merging the
old domains of "education" and "management" into a
self-reinforcing process with a strong futures perspective. Instead of
attempting to reform "schools", "businesses",
"governments", and other diverse "organizations", OLLO
offers a nu scaffolding for
nu innovative models for change. OLLO needs to be part of the diverse,
movements of contemporary change agents, such as P2P, The Commons, PLAST (A
Pattern Language for Systemic Transformation), People Centered Economic
Development, Collective Intelligence, TheNextEdge, and literally thousands of
other startup movements.38
The vast diversity of humans in cognitive/intuitional/behavioral
competencies and habits must be our real world. Norms and standard deviations
must be avoided, unless meaningful. Our real diversity is our future. We
are much more than the sums of our norms. Once we begin to adequately attend to
this relevant diversity, we will tap into its awesome power.39
The essential “complementarity” in OLLO is critical. OL and LO are
not in competition. They temporally-weave, in ways we are just learning about.
[11]40
There is considerable literature emphasizing humankind’s poor
record in developing and utilizing human resources, which acknowledges the vast
untapped, actualizable potentials in the human population. I expect that most
of them are weak in recommending what to do, and call for reforming our
educational systems. There is also literature pointing out the hidden agenda of
formal education: to indoctrinate workers to the industrial system and to
blindly accept authority. 41
In my analysis, stopping Global Heating and other human created
forces driving Earth Changes (including Climate Changes); creating
sustainable/resilient humankind; and participating in multiple recovery
ventures –– demands UPLIFT – and the abandonment of the civilization model for
societal organization. We must think/act beyond capitalism, econo-centrism,
and electoral democracy.42
The technological advancements over the century were accomplished
by a very small percent of the population. Imagine what would happen if the
whole population had these, and better, competencies. Don’t prejudge UPLIFT to
be impossible – in the short time frame of a few decades – until you consider
the full resources of our new knowledge. If UPLIFT is necessary for
survival, humankind can mobilize to make it real.43
VECTOR TERMS To illustrate the
higher level of complexity to be considered in UPLIFT, three new terms have
been coined. These are called here vector terms, as they represent the
multi-dimensional aspect of the concepts labeled by each term. Vector terms
are needed when one term (from a set of terms), elevated as a category label
for the set, creates a bias toward that term (concept), when the other terms (of
the set) may be equally appropriate. galdee = grow, adapt, learn, develop, evolve, emerge. Types of change. reeee = relevant, effective, efficient, enjoyable, elegant. Ways of
evaluating action. seaf = support, enable, augment, facilitate. Modes for helping. A mantra for the ontology-of-becoming for UPLIFT
may be: reeee seaf galdee. |
No one is expected to buy into UPLIFT “lock stock and barrel” on
the basis of this chapter. I estimate minimal effort being equivalent to a
difficult university graduate course. I also expect a quality educational (seafing)
process will be needed for many persons – that reading alone, without dialog,
would probably be insufficient. Compare the magnitudes of effort and challenge.50
Once we acknowledge the need and viability of the goal to
"rapidly uplift the global distribution of human
intuitive/conceptual/performance competencies", an exponentially growing
population of active participants emerges.51
It is important to emphasize that UPLIFT is neither a top-down nor
bottom-up process. UPLIFT involves a dance of engineering design and creative
flow; both planning-ahead and living in the Here&Now.
In UPLIFT the human population both pulls and pushes. Scaffolding is designed
and created from below, to pull others up. Those who embrace UPLIFT push the
design and creation of new scaffolding, for themselves and others.52
As you read this chapter UPLIFT is only an emergent idea, a
tentative proposal. Very little of what one might expect in a proposal doesn’t
yet exist in sufficient detail to motivate action. Much of this is intentional,
as the members of UPLIFT will design their next stages, and as UPLIFT
progresses, its competencies will increase. 53
We organize so we can learn more and we learn so
we can better organize ( OLLO). We don’t attempt to
apply our rapidly emergent systems of competencies to transforming our social
environments, or even engage in large projects related to climate change – as
important that is a longer term goal. Initially, we uplift ourselves, by our
bootstraps, to a level of competencies and organization when we become a major
positive force on Gaia. We galdee to become the nu social/societal, local-to-global, personal-to-planetary,
manifested version of humankind; an emergent nu Humanity – a radical
alternative to Civilization. Then we can be significant!54
Choosing the Societal Metamorphosis track is difficult. 55
In the decades leading up to 2015, the most informed and creative
change agents subconsciously adhered to the morphing or transformation model of
change. They speculated on very radical differences between the "old"
and "new", but - from their behavior patterns, it is evident that
they deeply assumed "the end game" as morphing or transforming.
Societal Metamorphosis was locked-into being only a metaphor for rapid,
significant shifting (morphing) from old to new.56
Two "situations" affected movement towards adequately
conceptualizing and implementing Societal Metamorphosis. We are blocked by our
intuitive/emotional/fast minds in denial of our extinction threat; while our
conceptual/rational/slow minds are trapped in confusing, paralyzing loops.
Emotion dominates reason as we confront cognitive dissonance.57
In Denial [12] , the
authors hypothesize that for self consciousness to have Darwinian survival
value it had to emotionally deny death, otherwise humans would be risk aversive
and not survive to breed. In our future, humans may need to be members of
special teams to override this barrier.58
Another barrier is our inability to adequately imagine Societal
Metamorphosis as a viable systemic strategy or scenario, more than metaphor,
because:59
(a) Most persons believe the established order
is too powerful to permit an alternative to manifest. The more knowledge one
has of the "power structures and elites" and their wealth and
technological competencies, the more invincible to reform they seem. Knowledge
of the "powers" is made much more difficult with their ability to
fabricate complex "evidence" and create sophisticated "spin
campaigns" to promote and sustain deceptions. Key to this is an
intentional demonization of "conspiracy thinking".60
Replacement (not reform) strategies, in that
they don't initially challenge establishments, have an opportunity to emerge
without suppression. The actions required are OLLO and the building of an
UPLIFT movement, which requires significant change for change agents - more
about being part of changing themselves than changing others. 61
(b) Most persons lack sufficient knowledge of
how the synergy of many new discoveries makes the rapid emergence of a viable
"societal butterfly" possible - in the short time frame before
collapse. Most change agents, if they devote the time to read about it,
categorize Societal Metamorphosis as a Utopian Fantasy or SciFi
speculation.62
However, the initiation of UPLIFT doesn't
require the participation of many people, certainly not most. Yet, the most
frequent objection to this proposal is "people can't change that
fast" or "most people won't understand" or "most people are
addicted to the material world". The UPLIFT model is specifically proposed/designed to "motivate” the whole global
population and help people “learn and organize” - in stages and over time -
starting with full knowledge of the contemporary distribution of addictions,
habits, beliefs, knowledge, competencies of a very diverse population.63
(c) The social/societal [7] systems of many change agents are
dysfunctional relative to their abilities to explore alternatives. The positive
value of intentions and the personally rewarding "communities of dialog
and practice" contribute to the delusion of doing "all that is possible", and to remain quite conservative related
to basic practices. 64
The change agent movement is far more diverse
than we usually take it to be. We often imagine it as the whole of those
persons we are aware of and who are active. This is a very small subset. Most
are doing good work in the context of their objectives, although all could
improve and would benefit by greater collaboration. Each works in a context
(largely, critically unexamined). Social pressures keep them focused. There is neither time, motivation, nor immediate benefit to challenge these
contexts, even if continuing as usual results in some cognitive dissonance.65
The cognitive dissonance between practice
and perspective is usually resolved for individual persons in favor of
maintaining practice (Kuhn's early "paradigm"). It might be
different for special teams, where social pressure is directed towards
challenging contexts (which starts with challenging perspectives of practices),
but is supported by changes in practices (involved in the challenging of
contexts). This needs further exploration. The “dialectic” between
practice and perspective will be the same “Möbius
spirals” as between OL and LO in OLLO.66
(d) Each specific structure both enables and
inhibits systemic processes. In designing systems to facilitate certain
processes we frequently ignore what processes that system's structure inhibits
or makes difficult. Frequently ignored by action oriented systems are the
continued learning of members (often in unexpected domains), evaluating and
improving the system, and adequately relating with other systems.
"Goals" (the intended consequences of achieving objectives) are
also seldom given the attention needed. Accomplishing goals usually depends on
the activities of other systems.67
As awesome as our intelligent technology is, the
specific structures that emerged (e.g. email, social media online; learning
venues such as courses and conferences, cell phones, etc.) makes it difficult
to develop many needed processes. Humans are usually more conservative as to
practices (paradigms) than to ideas (perspectives). Change agents are usually
not aware that their new tools may actually limit what they can do. Sometimes a
process made easy and enjoyable by the structure of the new technology is
seductive and attracts attention away from other processes. Online dialog often
distracts efforts for constructing collective structures, such as strategies
and educational programs.68
Persons can differ greatly in how they approach change and "the
future", and often aren't aware of this diversity. Those not having
developed adequate "futuring" processes
often belittle others for wasting their time. Persons who "futurize" are frustrated by those who can't recognize
the need to assess options related to different consequences.69
No humans have yet been successful seafing significant
change in societal systems of the size and complexity of contemporary reality.
We have sometimes been successful in creating viable communities (tribes with
uniform cultures) or businesses. But, creating viable societies composed of
diverse communities and cultures is a technological challenge seldom even
recognized.70
Ancient civilizations were as competent as we in managing people,
maybe even better - and with much more primitive technologies. What we
must do [13], in a few decades, is innovate advances in human-social technology
equivalent to what has developed the past few millennia in the technologies of
non-human, "natural" processes. For example, astounding gains were made
in: metallurgy, horticulture, agriculture, construction, road and bridge
building, transportation, seafaring machines,
tools, chemistry, animal husbandry, and unfortunately "war".
Health care and education had a much more checkered history. Humans demonstrate
great ingenuity, creativity, innovation - whether as indigenous tribes, Roman
road builders, or pyramid and cathedral constructors - all without electricity
or the internet to organize labor. There has been little advance in the
technology of systems where human persons are the key components.71
There is more than a hint of progress in the curation
by Giorgio Bertini's Learning Change blog
[14]. For over a year I have been reading Giorgio's brief summaries of
literally hundreds of quality articles on many diverse topics related to human
change and learning change. There is so much quality knowledge about
humankind and change rapidly accumulating that it overwhelms me to contemplate
how to use this knowledge. The assumptions we make about how humankind changes
(or functions or organizes) and apply in our activity are light years behind
what this new knowledge informs us. We have yet to discover/create how to work
with it.72
And this is only one of a great many domains where our new
knowledge far exceeds our abilities to apply. In analogy: although the authors
of a given research perceive both trees and groves; the larger and more complex
"forest of diverse groves" remains out of focus. Most decision makers
are unaware of or trivialize this vast resource which would greatly support
OLLO (Organizing-for-Learning=&=Learning-for-Organizing), and the success
of UPLIFT and Social Metamorphosis models.73
The contexts and limiting vision of their challenge, along with
inadequate technologies (relative to nu needs) inhibits change agents’ capacity
to be effective. A major reason is that a "technology of human
change" has yet to be scientifically based. False or inaccurate beliefs
and dogmas are at the foundations of attempts at intentional human change. Most
human change just emerges without much intention about “big pictures”. Our
current knowledge of this process (which we could surf if we could forecast the
waves) is also lacking. 74
What Might Change Agents Do, that they aren’t yet doing?75
Seeds, Soil, Scaffolding. 76
I favor a horticultural analogy I call SSS (viable Seeds, fertile
Soils, and nurturing Scaffolding) for change agent activity. We take action to
create/produce VIABLE SEEDS (proposals for projects) but make inadequate effort
to effectively distribute them and nurture the engagement of the audiences with
the sprouting seeds. We flood our Social Media with seeds commenting on seeds.
We enjoy this dialog and believe “real change” will, eventually, emerge from
it.77
We virtually ignore what may be needed to prepare and assist many
others in comprehending our seeds. We systematically ignore the need to also
create/produce FERTILE SOILS and NURTURING SCAFFOLDING for our seeds. 78
The viability of seeds and the fertility of soils complement each
other. Are the soils semi-isolated persons reading the same book, with
occasional book clubs? Do we need different versions of seeds to match
different soil types? Given a seed and a soil, what “fertilizers” may be
needed to seaf comprehension? What projects are needed to determine
cognitive profiles for relevant individual differences? Can a positive use be
made of our Big Data technologies for personalized discourse? How do we handle
privacy/transparency concerns?79
Nurturing scaffoldings are important in countering the tendency of
seed-soil matches to evolve into closed silos. We cannot expect dedicated
communities of practice to devote adequate time and energy to seek and engage
with other communities of practice. Seafnets will be needed to know about
and match communities. Communities must dedicate a subsystem to be responsible
for the larger network of communities and their seafers.80
Seafing is a powerful second
order system/process. Seafnet will be a well organized network of
humans, trained and dedicated to Supporting, Enabling, Augmenting, and Facilitating other persons/teams/communities working on
first order projects. Seafing, a generalization of the proposal by Shoshanna
Zuboff in The Support Economy [15], will serve as an enzymatic
accelerator to human social change.81
This chapter is only a Seed. I point my finger at myself.
Creating/producing Soils and Scaffolding involves making seeds about soils and
scaffolding; but requires more: different types of activity. We have yet to
reach an effective level of competent seed creation and discussion about soil
and scaffolding creation/production. Recently I have suggested strategy
construction as a complementary activity to dialog.82
BUILDING SCAFFOLDING
and SEMS (Semiotic Structures)[16] Scaffolding are temporary engineered physical structures designed to seaf
the reeee galdee of living systems
(persons, teams, communities, societies). Physical structures here include
semiotic structures: observable patterns in a physical substrate that results
in meaning when perceived. The meaning results from an interaction of the
pattern and the perceiver. Scaffolding could
include trained human persons performing to scripts. Exemplars of semiotic
structures (sems) would be digitized text,
graphics, and audio/video sequences. One type of actions by users of
scaffolding would be the creation of new sems or
the editing of sems in the scaffolding. Users of
scaffolding usually communicate via the exchange of sems.
Scaffolding may also
include any other physical structures used, such as tools, instruments,
displays, machines or physical substrates that are manipulated, as in
construction. However, the primary components in the design of a scaffolding are sems; although
the nature of the media displaying sems strongly
determines the reeee of perception
and study of sems. |
For me, this is a convoluted domain; in a way still at the
boundary between order and chaos. It has dimensions beyond our emotional issues
and immediate concerns; yet attending to this domain may have very significant
impact on our personal lives. High abstractions weave with our immediate
moments – which makes dialog difficult.87
Nu Language88
The issue of Social Metamorphosis is related to our awesome
cognitive diversity where the concept of a norm for a human is as inappropriate
as thinking of a norm for a mammal or tree. Our means of interacting and what
we collectively produce are still on the steep upslope of innovation, with
major paradigm shattering process ahead. We desperately need nu languages
and different media for expression/interaction. The digital realm has primarily
facilitated new versions of old processes and media – as is the usual pattern
for the consequences of innovation. What is truly unique to the digital realm
is only beginning to emerge and not yet adequately comprehended. 89
Our conceptual schemes have become so much more in magnitude,
scope, and complexity that we can no longer hold them in our working minds. We
must go beyond simple settings for processing information and linear exchanges.
We need semiotic structures that evolve via human participation. Wikipedia is a
poor analog, and explorations into Global Brains are attempting too much too
fast. Learning & organizing must be integrated into these
evolving/emerging representations of conceptual reality. The human agents
working at this level may need to be cybercrews, as
it probably involves activity beyond the competencies of single persons. We
need to experimentally create a nu perceptual
language that is totally free from having to be spoken (although speech
sequences could be components). We need media for both composing and processing
that integrate the dual nature of our knowledge structures: nested (outlines)
and networked (hypermedia). The new economy of digital production enables
us to present each sentence on a screen (with
all kinds of enchantments for comprehension) and abandon this compressed text
artifact from ancient times!90
LEARNING EXPEDITIONS91
Learning expeditions is one of a variety of
new small-to-midsize group organizational forms that might be
created as humankind emerges into the computer-mediated digital realm. As noted
elsewhere, we are just beginning to see deep cultural/epistemic changes,
consequences of recent innovations. Many of our crises are consequences of this
massive shift between cultures/epistemologies underway.92
The exploratory expeditions of the 19th century are my metaphor. Groups of persons formed tight
semi-isolated living/working communities for an extended period of time.
There also was an extended community which supported the core expedition,
both before and after the active period of the expedition. Many things were
accomplished by these expeditions; the primary achievement was learning – of
both participants and of humankind. The positive attributes of exploratory,
learning expeditions should be integrated into nu learning expeditions. The
semi-isolation and deep community relationships are very important – in the
sense of being “on retreat” for the duration.93
I lived in an urban commune in New Haven when at Yale, and I
wintered over in the Antarctic 1960-62 with 19 other men. We didn’t have a
common objective, but there was considerable mutual aide. Biosphere II in
Arizona was another variation, not too successful. Many proposed
“projects” could be conducted as learning expeditions. There should be
special organizations that seaf the infrastructure for teams wanting to
create learning expeditions. Many decades ago, George Por
borrowed the Learning Expedition concept (with acknowledgement). It remains a
viable insight.94
I would very much desire a learning expedition to brain-pick
Larry/nuet and his archive before he becomes senile and dies. I would
submit to interrogation and manipulation. In addition to Nobel and
MacArthur awards, humankind would gain much by identifying persons whose mental
development far exceeded their published productivity. Not that their views be
accepted, but that world-weaving “successes” should not be wasted. Had
they existed, I would have been part of Learning Expeditions of Gregory
Bateson, Erich Fromm, etc. I nominate the following to be explored by Learning
Expeditions: Douglas Hofstadter, George Por, Jerome
C. Glenn, Tom Atlee, Glistening Deepwater, Oliver Sacks, Howard Rheingold, and
many, many others. Might learning Expeditions be part of Seafnet
activity?95
What Next?96
The text of this chapter is a crude distillation of many times
more words/texts composed for this chapter – and this
from a reservoir of four decades of thinking and writing. A
viable nu humanity may seem “alien”, compared to envisioned minor
transformations of our contemporary reality. That these are critical times is
an understatement. If you sense that my proposals for UPLIFT and Societal
Metamorphosis have merit, I heartedly invite you to dialog with me, and assist
us going beyond dialog.97
REFERENCES & ENDNOTES 98
[1] Quinn, D. (1999). Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great
Adventure (New York: Three Rivers press) 99
[2]
Klein, N. (2014). This Changes Everything (New York: Simon
& Schuster)100
[3] This contrasting pair, Crisis-of-Crises and Opportunity-of-Opportunities
signifies a meta-perspective involving deeper feedback loops and cybernetics. “Crisis-of-Crises”
is much more than a “crisis”, as “Opportunity-of-Opportunities” is more
than an “opportunity”. This significant distinction can’t yet be experienced by
the vast majority.101
[4] Access to all my online publications: http://nuet.us/title-page/online-accessible-docs-by-nuet/ Email Larry at nuet1370@gmail.com for a “tour”. nu-et,
is a “nu” (variation of “new” with a futures orientation), “et”
(extra-temporal - a la extra-terrestrial, or explorer-in-time).102
[5] Comprehending insect metamorphosis remains an evolving
scientific project, with controversies as to its evolutionary origins. These
details are not relevant for the use of insect metamorphosis as analog for
societal metamorphosis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginal_disc . https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/insect-metamorphosis-evolution/103
[6] xxxxxx/yyyyyy I often use two terms, separated by a slash, to
focus on the relationship between the two conceptual schemes labeled by the
terms. Humanity/Gaia labels the dynamic. galdee
processes that influence the galdee of both Humanity and Gaia.104
[7] social/societal The distinction
between these two conceptual schemes and their interaction is critical to our
comprehension of change. “Social” involves the bio/psy
interaction patterns of “real” humans. “Culture” is in the domain of social.
Societal refers to structures that constrain the social, such as
organizations, institutions, governments, and corporations. Societal rose to
dominance over social with civilization. Today, many change agents try to
change social first, as that is what they have access to. Yet, deep change in
social requires radical change in societal.105
[8] Catmull, E. (2014) Creativity,
Inc. (New York, Random House LLC)106
[9] Duncan, R., Weston-Smith, M. (editors) (1977) The
Encyclopedia of Ignorance: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Unknown (Pergamon
Press)107
[10] Firestein,S.
(2012) Ignorance: How It Drives Science (New York, Oxford University
Press, Inc.)108
[11] I pay homage to Donald Michael’s On Learning to Plan and
Planning to Learn (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1973),
a seminal book in nuet’s emergence.109
[12] Varki, A. (2013) Denial:
Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind (New York,
Twelve, Hachette Book Group)110
[13] In a 1969 SCIENCE
journal article, with this title “WHAT WE MUST DO” by an old university
mentor, John R. Platt, launched my many decade adventure, leading to my major
insight cascade in 1974. http://home.comcast.net/~larryvictor/NUCOM/WhatWeMustDo_Platt.pdf 111
Platt focused on the potential of social technologies, but didn't
seem aware of the distinctions I make here. It may be significant that it took
me nearly five decades for this distinction to clarify, just now, although I
had hints before.112
[14] Bertini, G. Leading Change Blog
<https://gfbertini.wordpress.com/> [Retrieved 15 May 2015]113
[15] Zuboff, S. (2002) The
Support Economy (Viking Penguin) 114
[16] Victor, L. (2010). “Bootstrap UPLIFT Scaffoding
- BUS” Proposal submitted to InnoCentive <http://bit.ly/1EDuyIg>
[Retrieved 15 May 2015]115